Rodeo: Brazile fights through pain to keep competing

Anyone who has ridden a horse can attest to just how important the knees are in keeping a rider balanced and more importantly, in the saddle.

Now, imagine competing at the highest level of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association with a bad wheel - which is just what Trevor Brazile did in the final two performances of the recently concluded Wranglers National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

In the final two rounds, Brazile competed with an MCL sprain in his right knee, an injury that will keep him off the ground and astride a horse for eight weeks.

"It's just something you have to deal with," Brazile said during the Super Tuesday Roping at Ector County Coliseum.

"I'm basically just a team roper right now and I'm disappointed because I'm going to miss a lot of good rodeos calf roping, but I'll just have to work harder to get back."

But like everything that Brazile does, timing is everything.

Just three nights before suffering his injury, he clinched his sixth all-around championship, earning more than $400,000 on the season and $200,000 more than second-place Steven Dent.

It was Brazile's ninth world championship overall and his six all-around crowns puts him just one behind Ty Murray's record seven titles. That's a mark that Brazile is focused on this season and knows just how hard it's going to be to accomplish.

"You can't have a bad year when you are in my position," Brazile said. "Everyone is gunning for you and if they have great years, you have to be ready every time out."

It's Brazile's consistency over the past decade that has set him head and shoulders above the rest of the rodeo competition. Completely focused on the task at hand, Brazile seemingly wills the loop around the calf or steer that he is chasing each night.

One person who has seen Brazile's excellence up close the past two years has been Patrick Smith of Midland, who is the heeler in the team-roping duo.

Smith, especially, knows how important this season is for Brazile.

"It would be an honor for me to be heeling for him when he gets his seventh title," Smith said. "One thing that he does is that he knows how important team roping is to me because it supports my family, that Trevor's first priority is team roping and then he does the calf roping and steer roping.

"He's even got me tripping steers now, to try something else. I'm trying to learn everything I can from him, from the way he competes to the way he does things away from the arena, too."